What I'm Thankful For................

When my daughter was seven she thought sledding down the stairs on her terrycloth robe would be fabulously entertaining. I caught her about halfway down, before anything more serious than rug burns materialized. Like every other parent in the history of man, I secretly wondered how my progeny could possess absolutely no common sense.

Since then, my children have attempted any number of death defying feats of stupidity and, on occasion, I still feel like asking them if they’ve lost their minds. However, I’m not so far away from my own romps with idiocy that I underestimate its draw.

When I was a wee little girl, Tom and Jerry was my favorite cartoon. In one episode, Jerry the mouse overflowed the kitchen sink and then made the water freeze by opening the freezer door. His skating rink was complete with a rotating jello mold that cast multi-colored spotlights on our fine protagonist’s silhouette.

Of course, my brothers and I weren’t that naïve. We knew the water wouldn’t really freeze. We used dish soap instead. Our mother was taking one of her famous, ‘I’m not really sleeping, I’m resting my eyes’ naps and we, being the industrious little geniuses we were, took full advantage of the twenty minutes without supervision. There was a half an inch of sudsy water covering kitchen, breakfast nook, and hallway floors and we were squelching the loudest of our gleeful yells while tossing each other around our make shift slip and slide abode. Then the phone rang.

Have you ever had one of those moments where you knew exactly what was going to happen before it did, but you were powerless to stop it? The world becomes all slow motion and adrenaline and there’s no where you can run. That’s what it felt like as we watched our mother, running into the kitchen to answer the phone, sailing past with one arm still outstretched for the receiver, the wide eyed look of confusion then fear for a fleeting second and then... bam! Into the open utility closet she flew.

Sitting here at my keyboard, I can still feel how slippery the floor was as we tried to scurry out of the room, knowing we had to go right past a very annoyed mother type person on the way out the door. Evil little miscreant that I am, I still find it pretty funny. I have a sneaking suspicion those were the types of events that caused my favorite cartoons to lose favor with parents... ones who don’t want to take medication in order to stay on an even keel.

No mothers were damaged in the composing of this; she’s actually a good enough sport to laugh when we retell the story. I started this piece intending to spruce it up and submit it for publication... but I changed my mind and posted it here. With all of the posts around the blogosphere about what we’re thankful for, I thought this would serve as my own mini-prayer... I’m thankful for daredevil children, who play together and are truly friends – I hope they keep that with them forever because your siblings are the only people in this world who will be with you for, God willing, all of your life and that you can always count on to be on your side – even when you’re wrong. I have a two brothers and that’s the way it is for us and should be for everyone. I’m thankful for them, my friends, and many other gifts in this life – I’m also thankful for so many cyber friends, who keep me motivated and make me think... I hope this story made you chuckle a bit, or at least made you thankful that your own kids aren’t as bad as I was ;-)

Happy Thanksgiving.